A Transformative Nod to My Pops, Jim Raglin

When I was a kid, the only way I'd drink iced tea was with a heaping teaspoon of sugar mixed in. I still have a sweet tooth--sweet teeth might be a better descriptor--but, somewhere in my late teens, I quit adding sugar to my tea. By my 20s, I'd forgotten what all that sugary fuss was about, instead preferring my tea "neat."

It's odd when a part of our world slips away, worn down by new life and distractions until we can barely recall what its original edges looked like.

Eighteen years ago this week--I'm not even sure which day this week--my dad died. Eighteen years of this world without that man. That funny, sharp, bridge-building man.

Shortly after he died, I remember figuring there would be some sort of cosmic disruption in the order of things, now that Jim Raglin's fire had been snuffed.

Somewhere in my forties, though, my dad slipped away from me, his edges softened until it was possible for me to slide my feet over his spirit and feel nothing but the smoothness of the day.

That smoothness, though, is not disloyalty. Hardly. It is, instead, a kind of soft comfort, proof that my dad has been taken into this earth and turned into something else. Something lighter, less defined.

I am no longer bound by his angular lines and lanky body. No longer bound by his cackling laugh or unfortunate comb-over caught in a crosswind. Instead, his has been a circular journey, transformative and quiet. Hardly noticeable at times.

Mark is the gardener in my family now, but I think that, in honor of my dad, I will spend time on my knees and bury my hands in the wet, dank earth out back. There, I will smell life and death, trading places, transforming each other, wearing down the edges until they form something new.

There, in the garden, I will meet my dad again, and tell him about my day.